(Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Advance Media photo)
By Matt Arco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Here are 10 highlights from Clinton's sold-out talk with Mandel.
1. Who is Hillary Clinton?
Mandel kicked things off by asking: "What are the biggest misconceptions people have about you?"
Clinton responded, "I hear what Ruth was alluding to" and "I've given some thought to it because I hear it myself."
The question, at its heart, was: What do the people close to you see that others haven't been able to connect with?
"When you're in the public eye, you get snippets of a person and I think it's gotten even more difficult not to have a fragmentary view of anybody in the public arena today," Clinton said.
She detailed her 25 years in the public spotlight and argued her image was shaped — and often, distorted — by people on the other ends of the political battles she engaged in at any given moment.
"I hope that people would spend a little bit of time looking behind the image, or the picture," Clinton said. "That is, what I think, we hope for all of us. We want to be known as who we are and judged positively or negatively based on what we actually do — not what people say we do."
(Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Advance Media Photo)
2. Getting women involved in politics
Mandel remarked on the higher number of women seeking elected office this year and asked how that trend can be sustained in the future.
"Convince women to get involved in politics despite how difficult it is," Clinton said. "It's worth it to go out there and advocate for what you believe ... (and) the numbers of women who are running in this mid-term election and the special elections that we've seen has been very encouraging to me."
But, Clinton warned, women will be "criticized" and "face all kinds of attacks" that men aren't subject to, including "online" from the internet and "offline" in realtime.
3. 'Just not that woman'
Clinton said she's heard this one a lot: "I'd vote for a woman, but just not that woman." Then she joked, "since I'm often that woman ... " before she trailed off to laughs from the audience.
Clinton talked about some of the double standards between men and women in politics. When would you accuse a man attacking an opponent of being shrill? she asked. Or what would the reaction be if a woman started wagging her finger at a political opponent on the debate stage like men have no problem doing to one another?
"It's in the DNA. We're still working all of this stuff out," Clinton said.
(Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Advance Media photo)
4. How to recover from a campaign loss
Clinton referred to the election results as "pretty traumatic." She gave a smile when she delivered the line and her take on the contest drew laughs from the crowd.
So how did she recover?
"I took a lot of long walks in the woods," she said to more laughs.
"I drank my share of Chardonnay," Clinton added to cheers and even more laughs.
5. What's the benefits of being a woman candidate or officer holder?
"(It) gives us a different life perspective and that's something that we should own and be proud of," Clinton said.
But then she quickly turned the conversation into cooperation and bipartisanship.
"I'm hoping that we each bring something to the debate. But we can't have the kind of problem solving I think we should have if we don't listen to each other," she said.
Clinton recalled her time as a U.S. senator from New York and how she "worked with practically every Republican" she served with during that time. She accomplished bipartisan work by regularly talking and meeting with her colleagues and counterparts on the other side of the aisle.
"At the heart of everything are relationships," she said.
(Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Advance Media photo)
6. A divided Congress and far-right Republicans
As she recalled her days in the Capitol, Clinton remarked: "Now I look at the Senate and it just seems more divided than we were back in those days."
She said people should demand members of Congress "actually work with each other." When it comes to the blame game, Clinton said both political parties are at fault.
"We can all do better," she said.
However, Clinton suggested the GOP is taking it to another level and trashed special interest groups she argued have too much influence over lawmakers.
"I do worry that what's happening to the Republican Party is that it's being held captive," she said. "If you deviate from their stated requests they will fund someone to run against you in the Republican primary."
Clinton added: "I'd still like to see some Republicans stand up and said 'go ahead and try it.'"
7. Russian meddling
Clinton called for a national commission to look into Russian meddling in the 2016 election to find out "what actually did happen." She also said each state should be conducting reviews so they can better prepare for future elections.
"We're not anywhere near the bottom of understanding this," Clinton said. "They think they had a pretty easy first run and they are going to be involved unless we come together as a country ... to do much more to secure our elections than we've done now."
(AP file photos)
8. A jab at Trump
At one point when Clinton talked about double standards in politics, she exclaimed, "I was actually criticized for preparing for the debates!"
She recalled how her husband, President Bill Clinton, and President Barack Obama both spent days preparing for their respective debates. "My husband would go away for a week," she said.
But her debate prep was received differently, she argued.
"Trump said, 'Yeah, you actually prepared for this debate,'" Clinton recalled. "At first I thought, 'that's a new insult.'"
The crowd laughed. And then she took a swing at Trump.
"I'll tell you what else I prepared for, I was prepared to be president," Clinton said to long applause from the crowd.
9. 'A lot to be concerned about'
"I'm fundamentally optimistic and hopeful (about the future)," Clinton said. However, "there's a lot to be concerned about."
The dueling messages of Clinton's question-and-answer session were that women need to get more involved in politics and everyone needs to vote.
(Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Advance Media photo)
10. How to respond to those who say it's time to 'shut up'?
The 2016 election and Trump won, so why is Clinton still making public appearances and talking to crowds?
Or, Mandel put it to Clinton, why still talk when "people say get off the stage and shut up"?
Her response was direct: "They never said that to any man who was not elected."
Clinton then rattled off a list of recent presidential hopefuls whose campaigns also failed to get them to the White House and didn't disappear afterward: Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
"He's running for Senate!" Clinton exclaimed after naming Romney, a former Republican presidential nominee.
Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook.
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